Sessions at JSConf US 2011 on Monday 2nd May

This talk will explore the emerging client-side APIs for working with binary data in JavaScript. WebGL defines typed arrays, and the File spec defines a Blob type, but the big picture only emerges once you look at the cluster of APIs that use these types, such as XHR2, BlobBuilder, createObjectURL(), postMessage() and the HTML5 structured clone algorithm.

What happens when you build a new JS UI framework from scratch, and target it for HTML5? You might get "Jo". This talk is an introduction to this lightweight cross-platform mobile app framework. Jo works with PhoneGap, and can be used to make apps for iOS, Android, webOS, Chrome, and even Dashboard widgets. Architecture and philosophy will be discussed with code examples and demos throughout.

In the process of reinventing webOS for the next generation of mobile devices, the framework group in the HP group at Palm has built a new framework, Enyo. The core idea is to make an application-centric tool with the goal of being as fast as possible and for scaling UI elements for the range of screen sizes from tiny smartphones to expansive tablets. This talk would look at the design decisions made in creating Enyo and the lessons learned from running a entire mobile platform on JavaScript.

Adding methods to built-in objects: it’s one of JavaScript’s most powerful features. It’s also a great way to offend the sensibilities of your colleagues. We all hear that it’s irresponsible, that it’s sloppy, that it’s flat-out bad practice and should be avoided.

I’m tired of this one-sided battle. In this talk, I’m going to push back against whatever blog post you read that told you that extending built-ins was unconditionally and universally bad. I’m gonna go all Howard Beale on your asses.